Accessibility

N.Y. MTA launches revamped website

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) re-launched its website, mta.info, streamlining access to key travel information and introducing a number of new features, including an improved Trip Planner and an App Center. The update was the first redesign of the site since a major overhaul in January 2010, which has helped fuel a 65 percent increase in daily visitors.

“By providing real-time service information and easy-to-use travel planning, we’ve made MTA.info the go-to source for transit riders,” said MTA Chairman Jay H. Walder. “Today’s redesign improves further on the customer experience, adding new features and making it even easier to get the vital information our customers demand every day.”

The website’s new minimalistic design is cleaner, better organized and geared toward enabling customers to quickly identify the information they need. The redesigned website, which was designed by MTA staff, also includes these new features:

• An enhanced Trip Planner Plus creates a truly regional trip planner for the first time on mta.info, allowing users to receive interactive travel directions for Metro-North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road and Long Island Bus in addition to subways, New York City buses and the Staten Island Railway as in the past. These directions will continue to incorporate planned service changes.

• An App Center is a new gallery of apps for iPhone, Android and other platforms that have been created by third-party developers who use data that the MTA has shared electronically.

• Ways to Save is a new section that includes direct links to pages promoting travel savings.

• An Innovation highlight features a new customer service improvement being undertaken by the MTA. It includes a new invitation to customers to comment and interact with the MTA. The first highlight focuses on Countdown Clocks.

The small-scale pilot with Baidu USA will cover a few short routes in the Los Angeles area, which are still being determined based on analysis of the 45 fixed routes that Access Services oversees in the area.

In this cycle of grants, SANDAG awarded a total of approximately $7 million through its Specialized Transportation Program — which includes the TransNet Senior Mini-Grant and Federal Transit Administration Section 5310 programs.